- Open Access
Complex spin structure and magnetic phase transition of alloys
Phys. Rev. B 112, 014407 – Published 7 July, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pvjm-jvsr
Abstract
The hexagonal compounds possess several desirable properties that make them suitable magnetocaloric materials, including a ferromagnetic (FM)-to-paramagnetic (PM) transition near room temperature and soft magnetic behavior. In this study, we use the melt-spinning technique to explore the Mn-Fe-Sn ternary system. By combining magnetization measurements, Mössbauer spectroscopy, neutron diffraction (ND), oriented powder x-ray diffraction, and density functional theory (DFT) calculation, the magnetocaloric effect, spin structures, and the intrinsic magnetic properties of polycrystalline compounds are determined. The FM-to-PM transition temperature ranges from 253 K to 394 K . At low temperature, a spin reorientation at is observed, where below a coexistence of FM order with spins along the axis and antiferromagnetic order with spins within the plane occurs for and 1.0. However, for compounds with and 1.4, only FM order with spins along the axis has been found below . Above , the spin structure corresponds to FM order with spins aligned within the plane for all compositions. The magnetic moments of Mn and Fe were evaluated using DFT, demonstrating good agreement with the ND results.
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